The writer is a lawyer
Pak-India military tension has visibly escalated after the death of 18 Indian soldiers in the recent Uri terror attack in IHK. As per usual, India’s knee-jerk reaction has been to blame Pakistan for this attack without even sharing any credible evidence, or holding any reliable inquiry into it. Immediately after this attack, Indian PM Narendra Modi vowed action to ‘teach Pakistan a lesson’. Indian DG Military Operations also maintained that “the Indian Army reserves the right to respond at a place and time of its choosing.” Reportedly, the Indian political and military leadership is also seriously considering the option of conducting surgical strikes inside Pakistan. Moreover, an unusual military buildup by India has also been witnessed along the Line of Control (LoC) during the past few days.
On the other hand, terming the Uri attack a false flag operation, Pakistan has out-rightly rejected the Indian allegations. Besides this, in order to foil a potential surprise Indian attack, Pakistan has put its armed forces on high alert. Pakistan Air Force is on standby. In this particular context, the Pakistan Air Force also successfully concluded the “High Mark” exercise on the motorway near Lahore a few days ago. Thus, at the moment, the risk of an imminent Pak-India armed conflict apparently looms.
As a matter of fact, India is in no apparent position to launch any significant military offensive against Pakistan as there exists a perfect balance of power between the two countries vis-a-vis both nuclear as well as conventional military fields. India has no substantial military edge over Pakistan. Instead, Pakistan possesses superior air power as well as a more accurate delivery system. Moreover, as part of its Full Spectrum Deterrence (FSD) strategy, Pakistan has also developed a number of short-range-low-yield (SRLY) tactical ballistic missiles to issue a ‘qualitative response’ to India’s cunningly-designed military strategies against Pakistan such as the Cold Start Doctrine and Pro Active Operations (POA).
A recent report published in The Economist, a reputed English news magazine, has explicitly exposed the dark side of Indian armed forces. It reveals that India’s international ambitions are utterly incompatible with its military muscle. It says that much of the Indian weaponry is outdated or ill-maintained. It also maintains that almost 40% of the aircrafts of the ‘world’s fourth largest Air Force’ are simply not fit to fly. Besides this, corruption has also become a major problem within the scandal-prone Indian military. Therefore, India’s current ambition to conduct surgical strikes inside Pakistan essentially indicates that India must suffer from a severe psychotic disorder characterised by loss of contact with reality. Obviously India is not as strong as the US. Nor is Pakistan as weak as Afghanistan.
In fact, India, as part of a well-thought-out plan, is trying to exploit the Uri terror attack by escalating military tensions between the two countries, only to divert international attention from public unrest and agitation in IHK following the death of Kashmiri freedom fighter, Burhan Wani. Besides this, it also intends to deter Pakistan from playing a proactive role in highlighting the ongoing Indian atrocities in the occupied state of J&K. Therefore, India has resorted to its oft-employed typical tool of Brinkmanship – a strategy to achieve the desired outcome by practicing a policy of pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict. Indian has already actively employed this strategy through its extensive military buildup along the international border under Operation Parakram following the 2001 Indian Parliament Attack.
Aimed at carrying out surprise hot pursuit against Pakistan below the nuclear threshold, India’s Cold Start strategy is replete with many flaws and shortcomings. India doesn’t possess any significant military superiority in conventional aspects over Pakistan to execute this plan. India also lacks the capability to instantly and rapidly mobilise its troops, which is the pre-requisite for this sort of surprise attack. India’s has three strike corps, and they all require considerable time to reach the international border. In 2001, India took 27 days to fully mobilise its troops to the international border. Therefore, the Cold Start Doctrine lost its significance and relevance long ago.
After the apparent failure of its Cold Start Doctrine, India has somehow evolved a new strategy to manoeuvre against Pakistan though a fourth generation proxy war. Therefore, we can now witness numerous violent non-state actors in the form of pseudo-jihadists and pseudo-nationalists across the country. This war has badly damaged Pakistan. It has claimed the lives of more than fifty thousand Pakistanis. In the future, India is likely to continue with this strategy as it can no longer defeat Pakistan in conventional warfare. In his Independence Day speech, Indian PM Narendra Modi hinted at fanning the Baloch separatist movement. As part of this plan, India is also all set to grant political asylum to exiled Baloch separatist leader Brahamdagh Bugti. Similarly, after the Uri terror attack, it is also very probable that India would try to retaliate by intensifying its current terrorist activities in Pakistan.
During the last 10 years, Pakistan’s armed forces have conducted various full-fledged military operations across the country to curb terrorism and militancy. Besides this, there have also been a number of IBO’s and combing operations in Pakistan. After the APS Peshawar tragedy, we somehow succeeded in evolving a national consensus on the issue of terrorism. Later, we also devised a 20-point National Action Plan to curb militancy and extremism in the bud. However, although we have successfully evolved an effective domestic counterterror strategy, we have badly failed to focus on another substantial dimension of phenomenon of terrorism in Pakistan – the external factor. Pakistan has not yet taken any proactive posture against India despite the fact that India is playing a pivotal role in planning, sponsoring and executing most acts of terrorism in Pakistan.
In order to make India abandon its nefarious designs, Pakistan will first have to actively expose the dirty face of India to the world. Regrettably, Pakistan has not yet propagated its view point on this issue. Nor has it succeeded in evolving an international narrative vis-à-vis India-backed terrorism in Pakistan. On the other hand, India is actively trying to isolate Pakistan internationally. All terror incidents in India can just be counted on the fingers of one’s hand – the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the 2015 Gurdaspur attack, the 2016 Pathankot attack and the recent Uri attack. On the other hand, there have been more than 800 major terror attacks in Pakistan between 2001 and 2016, resulting in tens of thousands of casualties. But ironically, due to extensive Indian propaganda against Pakistan, the world community in general considers Pakistan an aggressor, and India a victim.
The ongoing 71st session of UNGA essentially indicates the state and magnitude of propaganda carried out by both India and Pakistan vis-à-vis cross-border terrorism. While addressing this session, Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj readily called Pakistan a terrorist country by declaring that it is a country which “nurtures, peddles and exports terror” to other countries. But as usual, PM Nawaz Sharif did not deem it necessary to utter a single word regarding Indian foul-play in Pakistan, thanks to the ‘single-minded’ Foreign Office as well as our ‘dream team’ at the UN. In fact, Pakistan’s feeble stance and apologetic attitude towards cross-border terrorism has always encouraged India to malign Pakistan internationally by dubbing it a rogue state.
In order to counter the accumulated effect of this undesirable binary, Pakistan should try to strategically align to major regional powers like China and Russia. Besides this, Pakistan also needs to improve its bilateral ties with Iran to marginalise the ever-rising Indian influence in Afghanistan. Pakistan should also try to neutralise anti-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan. At this stage, Pakistan’s aggressive posture against India can only put the latter on the back foot.http://nation.com.pk/columns/28-Sep-2016/countering-india
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